Two Rings, Two WorldsOne Heart
by BinaryTales
Summary: As Edward and Roy Mustang—found again on the Earthside—celebrate New Year’s, the memories of a certain Colonel on the other side of the Gate threaten to part them before their wedding day… stand alone story from the Fifty Trips Alt!Verse


Taisa Roy Mustang found the Post-It stuck to his contact lens case

Taisa Roy Mustang found the Post-It stuck to his contact lens case. Ed did that a lot. "You're blind as a friggin' bat in your left eye without them. You'll grab your lenses before you'll grab your dick to piss when you get up in the morning so that's the best place to leave you a message."

"Hell, Ed—if you want me to see it first thing why not duct tape it over your mouth? My first thoughts at the dawning of a new day are usually centered around shoving a pillow down your throat and clamping your nose shut so you'll stop snoring in my ear."

Ed was alone at the breakfast table, attacking his bacon and eggs and sausage so voraciously that it was miraculous that he hadn't chiseled holes in the plate with his fork. He never glanced up, but pointed in the general direction of the coffee pot. "Pour me one too."

"Pour it yourself, you lazy bastard."

"And don't put any of that white shit in it. Just sugar."

Taisa splashed a generous amount of hazelnut creamer into his cup. His hand hovered dangerously near the mug he'd filled for his lover, then he sighed and put it back in the fridge. The spiteful delight of ruining Ed's coffee wasn't worth hearing him bitch this early in the daytime. Or was it?

_Ohhh..what the hell…_

Ed never even glanced at the cup before sucking down that first huge swallow of what proved to be a mugful of lukewarm milk, liberally doused with the despised hazelnut creamer.

When Alphonse wandered in, a smugly grinning Mustang was just putting the mop away. Ed was out on the balcony, knees sagging as he clung limply to the railing, wiping his mouth and muttering dire curses. "He's had it coming for _years_," Roy smirked.

Alphonse looked nervously down at the small parcel he'd just picked up at the downstairs office. It was heavily insured and was delivered by courier. The return address was a single word in French: _Boucheron._ Alphonse was almost afraid to touch it. He'd been stunned to learn that when Ed and Roy had vacationed in Paris last fall that they'd actually dared to go ring hunting in that most venerable French institution that had crafted tiaras for the Queen Mother _and_ jewels for Nicholas II of Russia. Ed, unfortunately, had abominable taste when it came to anything remotely artistic. If Ed had chosen the rings, he fretted, only love could prompt Taisa to wear it in public. "Um…maybe this isn't a good time…" he began awkwardly. "I'll just put this on Brother's desk. Ah—he did tell you that he's asked me to…um…let the two of you have some privacy tonight?"

Mustang smiled and slapped Alphonse lightly on the shoulder. "I'll get chocolate for the Fullmetal Asshole as an apology. But don't give him the rings now or he'll throw them—and me—right over the rail…"

Eight 'o clock—and his lover took his breath away.

All right—the little bastard _had_ nearly poisoned him with that…that…foul, revolting white shit that was squirted out of a cow. But still, when Roy appeared as summoned into the main room at 8pm, Ed's chest felt as tight as the crotch of his finely tailored English suit. _Dear god_—if there was a god, Ed thought—_if he dresses like that on our wedding day I'm gonna be forced to drag him off and hump his parts raw before we get to the vows._ Eschewing Western dress, Mustang wore a traditional black kimono of five _kamon_ crests_, hakima_ trousers and an simple dark _haori_ over all.

Roy's eyes glinted at the sight of Edward, so elegant in one of those dark suits that hearkened back to the pre-war Germany of his youth—somehow he could wear antique styles and never appear ridiculous. The high collar of crisp linen, the waistcoat that showed off his trim body to perfection, the vintage black frock coat and tight trousers—right down to the blood red rose in his lapel that accompanied the dark chocolate champagne truffles Roy had sent, "to clear the palate after your breakfast trauma".

But more than that was the expression on Edward's face that made his face burn and his heart hammer in his breast: open, welcoming, even vulnerable as he stepped into Roy's arms without a word. They stood locked together, not kissing, not speaking, just breathing quietly together until Edward stepped back, reached behind him and switched on the cd player. Roy recognized the music—he'd heard it for the first time as he and Edward danced slowly together under a canopy of stars the evening of the day they'd met on this side of the Gateway. It was the incomparable gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt, only now it played softly through the finest Bose speakers, not from the tinny-sounding tape deck of Teddy's vintage VW Microbus.

_I love three men_, Mustang affirmed silently as he freed Edward's golden hair from its tie, letting it spill through his hands, lifting the gleaming strands to his lips. _All three are in my arms right now…_

_Fullmetal_….that hard-assed, obsessive, relentless genius. The part of Edward Elric who refused to believe that his brother would spend eternity trapped in a suit of armor. The man who waited for him for a _lifetime_, never once doubting he would find his Colonel again. Teddy's sensei who bullied and harassed and bedeviled her—and now Jeanne-Marie—into excellence so that the alchemic heritage of the Elric family would last down through the generations.

_And then there was Edward…_source of never-failing strength to those who needed him. Devoted son and brother, idolized by Al's children and grandchildren. The patient man who made Hikari's last days so joyful and risked arrest and worse when he broke into her family's vault and defiantly placed her ashes beside that of Roy's grandmother. _I have two fine sons_, Hikari told her doctors proudly. _My Taisa and my Edo-kun—one of my blood, one of my heart._ The scientist and diplomat, who worked relentlessly behind the scenes for the cause of world peace, never forgetting his family's part in the arrival of uranium weapons on this side of the Gateway. A man to be admired. A man greatly loved. A man who had done much good…

The silken head rested over his beating heart, eyes closed, Utterly relaxed, utterly trusting. Roy remembered when Edward _never_ fully relaxed, even after lovemaking. He lived his life casting anxious eyes over his shoulders, cynical and suspicious…and that hadn't changed much…but now there were moments of rest, precious moments between squabbles. Moments in the dark, or by candlelight—moments like the dawn they watched together on a snowy rooftop two hours after Izumi's birth when they clasped hands in the growing light and bespoke one another, claiming one another now and for always. Moments when the man in his arms ceased to be _Fullmetal_ or even _Edward_. Moments when he became _Edowādo_, the name Taisa called him in his heart, in the language of his homeland. The lover who could be so tender in unguarded moments. The companion who made him want to live forever like a natural born Elric. _I'm going to die first, more likely than not. If I lost him…shit…can't even think about it. Ed and Al could live for centuries, if what we know about Hohenheim's blood is true. They will all outlive me—the brothers, Teddy…probably Izumi and her children, thought there's no telling what will happen as Hohenheim's blood is diluted over the generations. I'll wither away and be forgotten and my true family will go on…and so will… my husband._

Not for the first time he felt the skeletal hand of Time curl around his heart.

Taisa Roy Mustang stopped dancing. He turned from his lover and hurried outside onto the balcony so Edward would see his expression as he buried his face into his hands. _What the fuck am I, anyway? A pathetic, short-lived ordinary mortal—not even a proper Flame Alchemist. The Colonel never felt this kind of fear. He wasn't afraid of dying. I don't care what Alphonse says—I'm a shitty substitute for the Man from Amestris. _

A pair of well worn gloves, brought back from Amestris by Alphonse when he passed through the Gate months ago, were pulled out of his _haori _pocket. _God, if it were that damned simple. Slip them on—be the man you wish I could be…_

_Fullmetal_ would have told him to snap out of it. _Edward _would have gotten pissed at him and stormed off, slamming doors behind him and ignoring him coolly for hours.

But it was _Edowādo_ who had held him and it was _Edowādo_ who approached him quietly, reaching up to lay his hands on Roy's shoulders. "Kinda cold out here," he said softly. One hand slid around and rested over his heart. "Cold in here too?"

"Yeah."

After a moment, _Edowādo_ clasped his hand. "Come in, then. We'll warm each other, okay?"

Taisa loved the _Kotatsu_—that small, quilt covered table that concealed a tiny heater. As a little boy growing up in Tokyo he remembered sitting on his mother's lap at the kotatsu, quilt tucked around them both as they drank hot tea, ate _mochi_ cakes with sweet red bean paste and Hikari recounted the marvelous stories she'd been told as a child—legends of full of gods and demons and _oni_ ogres and enchanted fox maidens.

Now it was his lover who sat by his side, who wrapped a second quilt around his shoulders and filled his glass with Möet et Chandon, patiently waiting for him to find the words that needed to be shared this night.

The gloves—one of two pairs Teddy and Alphonse brought back from Amestris—lay before them on the kotatsu's lacquered table top. _And I have no memory of any of that_, Taisa thought ruefully. _I was the one who tested her transmutation skills, forced her to accept that Ed's teaching hadn't just been bullshit theory. _ He'd seen the photographs Al had taken—of Teddy kneeling before a blazing spiral of golden light, eyes wide with delight as her heavy silver bracelet reshaped itself into the silver Flamel crest that Alphonse never took off since his daughter gave it to him. _The grey, gaunt man with the eyepatch—so smug and superior looking as he pointed out the flaws in Teddy's techniques. If I had talked to her like that she'd have told me to go fuck myself._

Then there were the photos of the old Colonel surrounded by a circle of grey haired officers and a stately silver-haired woman. _Falman. Breda. Havoc. Furey. And the president of Amestris herself, Riza Hawkeye. Friends I can't remember. They came to drag me off to some damned old soldier's home because I'd apparently holed myself up in the Briggs mountains with one of Hohenheim's Portal Stones, obsessed with the idea that Edward was on the other side. I was 70 years old, dying slowly of chronic respiratory disease after my lungs were stabbed and sliced in the fight with King Bradley. They thought I'd lost my mind and were prepared to escort me to a veteran's home, but I told them I'd be goddamned if I was going to end up strapped to a wheelchair, shitting in a diaper or being treated like an invalid. No way for a soldier to die. No, I'd find a way to the Gate and find Fullmetal again or die trying. And I raised such hell that the Earth side of the Portal began to react and Al and Teddy got dragged through because Hohenheim was--_

"_Shit_."

"Talk to me, Roy." Edward's voice was oddly calm. "Spit it out."

"Okay." A slow, shuddering breath. "I want to remember. I _need_ to."

Metal fingers tightened, tearing a hole in the quilt. "No you don't. Trust me." Was this what was eating at Mustang? Sheesh. Not good. "Teddy doesn't remember being my mother," he offered lamely.

Mustang's dark brows knitted with frustration. "Different cases. Mother and child. But he was your lover—"

"And you're about to become my husband, with license and everything…well, okay, maybe it won't be recognized as legal here in Japan, but—"

"—and you waited so long to find him…and what you got stuck with was not a leader of men but some teenage chemistry major who carbonated your hormones because he just happened to look like your old love—"

"_Listen to me_." Quiet. Commanding. Ed's hands burrowed under the quilt to catch him by the shoulders again in the event he tried to get up and walk away from this conversation. "It started in Amestris when you were the Colonel—but that's only the beginning of the story. Or maybe it's not. Maybe we loved each other before that time and we just kept searching and searching until we found one another again. I knew when I started seeing familiar faces on the Earth side that it meant I'd find you, sooner or later. Okay. It ended up being later, and yeah, you were pretty young when I found you. But I didn't just fall into your bed because you were my old lover. It was more—_god_, you just don't know…"

Alphonse had been oh so careful when he broke the news to his brother. "Teddy has a new friend. She and Hughes rescued this Japanese student from some frat boys who were punching him out in an alley last Saturday. They moved him in as a third housemate. His name is…well…Teddy says his name is Mustang. _Taisa Roy Mustang_. His dad was English and he and his mom have been living in London for the past six years. He's an alchemist—I-I mean, Teddy says he's studying chemistry…"

That was all Edward needed to hear. "Don't rush him, Brother, please!" Al had warned him. "Maybe he doesn't remember anything about home—or maybe he's not the Colonel…"

For once in his life, Edward actually listened to his younger brother.

Teddy was his alchemic disciple, had been for two years now. She knew the family secrets, understood that her grandfather had created dangerous Portal Stones on both sides of the Gateway, and that there must always be an Elric to watch them and close the breaches if someone or something tried to get through. Ed was in constant contact with her, so it would be nothing surprising if he called or wrote her or even flew in to visit her. It took heroic efforts to control the eagerness in his voice when he called to enquire when she would be free for spring break. "I'll get a hotel room since your dad told me you've got a full house now. Who's the new roommate?"

When he stepped off the plane that April morning, the only thing he could see was face of the lanky young man chatting away easily with his niece. He was barely nineteen, but as he joined into the conversation during lunch Edward's heart began to pound so hard his ears were ringing. The young man was brilliant, articulate, opinionated and Ed saw flashes of sharp, acidic humor that were so achingly familiar it was all he could do not to call him Colonel Sarcasm.

Twelve hours later Edward was down on his knees in the back seat of Teddy's Microbus with Taisa's fingers clutching his hair, the music of Django Reinhardt loud enough to mask the groans and the sound of his own name being cried out in Japanese—_Edo! Ohhhh…Edowādo…__daisuki desu to omou!_

They had had a rocky start, and there were plenty of times they'd aggravated one another to the point of the occasional slugfest or shouting match, but their squabbles never lasted long and usually ended with hours or even days of prolonged, ecstatic lovemaking. Life with Taisa was a different kind of flame alchemy than Edward had known in Amestris. The Colonel could conjure sparks with the snapping of his fingers. Taisa could set a spark off in Edward's heart just by _being_ there.

"…and that's what I'm trying to get you to understand, you stubborn little shit! What we had in Amestris was the spark. _This_ is the blaze made by that spark—and if you remember your past you'll get more than the pleasure—you'll remember the horrors too. Roy fought depression his whole damned life because of Ishbal and the war. He never recovered from losing Maes Hughes. He was a haunted man, even at the best of times—Hughes and I were the only ones that ever saw behind the mask. He drank and brooded and spent his last days barricaded in Briggs. If Al and Teddy hadn't come to him, he'd have died alone in the snow or been dragged off by force. Don't you understand? _I am not going to let you suffer like that again!_" Edward's eyes were growing moist as he pounded his fist on the table. "You wanted to know what we had—what it felt like to be fucked by him—no, by _you_, damn it!—or what you tasted like, or the sounds you made whenever I touched you…you wanna know? I'll tell you this—good as you were—and you were damned good—it still pales into insignificance when you touch me now. Because, you moron, THIS time you _stayed_. This time I didn't lose you. I know when I wake up in a cold sweat with memories of losing Al or turning my mother into a monster or Alfons dying for me or my dad being _eaten_ alive before my very eyes—I know you'll be there. I know you'll hold onto me, pull me back so I don't go crazy when the weight of all these years start to crush me.

"And yeah, I know it freaks you out, knowing that me and Al and Al's descendants are gonna live these long, long lives because of what happened to Dad in Xerxes and because of our own contact with the Philosopher's Stone. There's no knowing how long we've got. Odds are I'll outlive you and it pisses me off—but remember this, Mustang: I lost you once before. I found you. If and when I lose you this time, then I swear with all my heart I _will_ find you. And I know if I'm the one who dies, you'll never stop until you find me again—because now that you know, and now that Teddy's training you as an alchemist, you'll know how to hunt for me on either side of the Gate…"

The two men stared at one another in the candlelight. Finally, one corner of Taisa's mouth lifted in a familiar smirk. "So…what you're saying is that I'm stuck with you, Fullmetal?"

Edward dug into his breast pocket and place the small leather box from France on top of the ancient gloves. Flipping the lid open, the light sparkled off polished gold. The larger of the rings bore the Flamel crest. The smaller was carved with the salamander array that matched the one emblazoned on the gloves. "Yeah. Guess so. Wanna try 'em on?"

Mustang grinned and shook his head. "No. When that ring goes on, it stays on for good."

Ed closed the box and laid it and the gloves to one side before pulling his once and future love closer, one hand slipping under the folds of Roy's kimono. Outside in the snow Alphonse, was shooting off skyrockets to the delight of the neighbors as onlookers blew noisemakers and cheered. "Happy New Year, Shithead."

Roy paused as his fingers made short work of the buttons on Ed's waistcoat. "You too, Asshole," he purred in his husband's ear. "You too."

_I can imagine the moment  
Breaking out through the silence  
All the things that we both might say  
And the heart it will not be denied  
'Til we're both on the same damn side  
All the barriers blown away_

_Come talk to me—come talk to me…_

--"Talk to Me"—Peter Gabriel


End file.
